Fulfilled Frogs

The bad news

Worldwide, frog populations are being devastated by a microscopic aquatic fungal parasite, chytrid fungus (dcceew.gov.au PDF), that infects a frog’s skin. While under water or hibernating underground, frogs breathe and absorb nutrients through their skin. Once infected, the frog becomes sluggish, or loses its appetite, or just sits in the open. Since it first began to explode globally in the 1970s, chytrid fungus has already caused extinctions and severe rates of mortality in some populations. Massive frog fatalities began in Australia in the 1990s.

The spread of chytrid fungus in wild populations is difficult to control. Research suggests that some populations appear immune. Captive frogs can fully recover with anti-fungal treatment and other supportive management. Monitoring the impact of the disease, detecting new outbreaks, establishing control and quarantine zones, are some of the strategies being employed to try and mitigate the effects of this devastating disease.

The good news

There is a lot we (individually) can do to help our aquatic friends: in our gardens, plant natives, throw out the pesticides and weed killers, and build some frog habitat. A frog pond/bog does not have to be a major construction. A tipped over ceramic pot or some extruded bricks close by a near ground level (consistent) water source will do. There are lots of online resources (Sustainable Gardening Australia PDF) for ideas.

Eastern Banjo Frog (Pobblebonk)

This burrowing frog is a common Gippsland amphibian. Banjos can remain buried for long periods and then emerge after some rain. It makes its ‘bonk’ or ‘plonk’ call usually after dark.  The call is described as sounding like a banjo string being plucked.

Southern Brown Tree Frog

This little frog, 25-45mm, can be quite common in home gardens. The Southern Brown Tree Frog is very agile and is known to leap into the air to catch a flying insect. As its name suggests, it is a good climber. The Southern Brown Tree Frog’s call is described as a rapid, whirring, ‘creeeeeee-creee-creee-cree-cree-cree’ repeated 4 or 5 times.

Frogs are an essential part of a variety of ecosystems. They eat a lot of pest invertebrates and they themselves, and their tadpoles, are an important part of the food chain. Because they are sensitive to their environment, frogs are good bioindicators.

 What’s not to like?

 

Cabbage White butterfly

Slightly worn male (one black spot on the forewing)

Google ‘Cabbage White butterfly’ and you get hundreds of sites recommending ways and means of controlling this pest species. The host plant for this species is anything in the brassica family: cabbage, cauliflower, kale, broccoli, etc.

 Feeding on a Trigger plant on Mt St Gwinnear

Cabbage White, Pieris rapae, is a common butterfly in urban and market gardens. Its natural range is Europe, Asia and North Africa. After being accidentally introduced in Melbourne in 1929, the species is now widespread in the major cities and towns around the perimeter of Australia, particularly in the southern states.

While the larvae are exceptionally voracious eaters of the brassica family, the adult butterfly is happy to seek its diet of nectar from native and non-native flowers, especially if they are coloured purple, blue or yellow.

Female (two black spots on forewing)

Cabbage Whites are described as erratic flyers around our urban gardens, but they can be very direct and strong fliers too; adults have been recorded as flying up to 12km in one flight.

Swordgrass Brown butterfly

The Swordgrass Brown, Tisiphone Abeona, is a fairly common Gippsland butterfly. There are several sub-species up and down the eastern seaboard and all are endemic.

As the common name suggests, their host plant is swordgrass, in this district, mainly Red-fruit Saw-sedge. The caterpillars feed on the leaves mostly in the mornings and evenings and take refuge at other times in the leaf litter at the bottom of the sedge.

Swordgrass Browns are large, handsome butterflies with a wingspan of 5-6cm. They are slow, graceful fliers, usually flying in sunlit patches of woodland and swampy places, often only a metre or two above the ground. They are described as sedentary and when located they will not be far from their host plant.

This butterfly was first described and named by the Anglo-Irish ‘gentleman naturalist’ Edward Donovan, in1805: “There are few infects more ftriking in appearance then Papileo Abeona. This appears to be one of the more common fpecies of the Butterfly tribe in many parts of the Auftralafian regions: we receive it in this country not very unfrequently among infects from the vicinity of the Englifh fettlements at Port Jackfon.”  In 1819, the German entomologist Jacob Hübner renamed it Tisiphone abeona,  maintaining the strange use of Greek and Roman mythology to name species: Tisiphone was the avenger of murder, a Greek underworld goddess, and Abeona was the Roman goddess of departures. Go figure.

 

Wonga Pigeon

The father of Australian ornithology, the eminent naturalist John Gould, when describing this bird gave its first feature as: ‘a great delicacy for the table; its large size and the whiteness of its flesh rendering it in this respect second to no other member of its family’. Indeed, the genus name given the bird, Leucosarcia means white flesh. How things have changed! The species name, picata, means pied (usually black and white but in this case, grey and white?).

The far-carrying, repetitive ‘wonk-wonk-wonk…’ call is more often heard than the bird is seen.

Wongas are strictly ground feeders and often have dedicated pathways through the bush.

Their habitat is wet forest areas down the eastern seaboard, stopping abruptly about here in West Gippsland.

These two, or perhaps it was same bird twice, appeared recently at Rokeby. More information in an earlier post here.

Rufous Fantail

At Uralla Reserve in Trafalgar recently, the bush was dry as a bone and the bird life exceptionally quiet, except … a flash of orange-brown in the understory could only be the beautiful Rufous Fantail.

The Rufous Fantail is a spring-summer migrant in this district. The adults here now, after breeding, will shortly head back north to as far as Cape York and perhaps even New Guinea. Apparently, the juveniles follow some weeks later, a migratory pattern that amazes me.

Research indicates that the Rufous Fantail exhibits strong fidelity to its breeding territory, with ringed individuals returning consistently to the same areas. When they are on the move, it is not unusual to see a bird in a home garden or urban parkland. Migratory flights are taken early morning from just before sunrise and late afternoons to just aftersunset.

Rufous Fantails like to inhabit rainforests and wetter gullies in montane forests and woodlands. They feed on insects on the ground and in the understory and midstory, taken mostly on the wing. They are constantly on the move.

Rhipidura rufifrons: rhipis = fan, oura = tail, rufus = red, frons = forehead (strangely named for its rufous forehead and not the brilliant tail?)

Little Pied Cormorant

Posing at Alex Goudie Park in Drouin

The Little Pied Cormorant, Microcarbo melanoleucos (micro = small, carbo = charcoal (as in the Great Cormorant), melan = black and leucos = white) is distinguished by its pied plumage, dusky face and a yellow bill.

Little pieds are broadly distributed across Australia and are quite adaptable as they can be found on inland freshwater or coastal saltwater habitats – lakes and dams, wetlands, estuaries, etc. Although considered sedentary, Little Pied Cormorants may exhibit some local nomadism as water levels change or food availability alters.

A yabbie meal with a 'coot in pusuit for som scraps - Australian Garden Cranbourne

Essentially a fish eater, Little Pied Cormorants also take yabbies, shrimps and insects. They dive for their prey and can stay under for 30 seconds or so. Their fully webbed feet propel them strongly as they chase their prey and the bird will often surface from a dive quite a distance from where it started.

"Anyone got a hair dryer?"

Oddly for a diving bird, its plumage is not especially waterproof and much time is spent ‘drying out’ between food sorties.

Three of about ten birds at roost behind the sand dunes at Coronet Bay

Although it mostly hunts alone, the little pied is gregarious enough to roost and nest in small colonies.

While its numbers are thought to be stable, you can guess what threats to this species might include: degradation and alteration to waterways, urban development, agricultural practices, et al.

 

A few recent Odes

Few insects can match Odonata, (Damselflies and Dragonflies) for speed, manoeuverability, and beauty. Add to that their partly aquatic, extraordinary 3-stage life cycle and further, their value to the environment (they play vital ecological roles) – what’s not to like? Their only problem – some can be challenging to photograph!

Common Flatwing (Picnic Point)

The Common Flatwing breaks the rule that 'Damselflies rest with their wings closed'. The Common Flatwing is mostly found near running streams, although sometimes I’ve seen them some distance from water. They can be locally common some seasons.

Blue Skimmer (Coronet Bay)

Blue Skimmers usually inhabit still water habitats: swamps, bogs, dams, etc. This eye-catching Dragonfly often makes photographing it a bit easier: it patrols its territory and rests often and frequently on the same stick, plant or rock.

Blue-spotted Hawker (Drouin)

These are large dragonflies that like to inhabit lakes, dams, or slow-moving streams. Sometimes Blue-spotted Hawkers are seen a long way from water. It is a common and widespread species (and I got it wrong – thanks Dunc).

Swamp Tigertail (Mt Baw Baw)

Swamp Tigertails tend to inhabit swampy, boggy seepages in alpine locations.

Bronze Needle (Robin Hood)

This Damselfly also prefers running water habitat for its larvae and is usually easy to find beside streams in this district. Bronze Needles are endemic to s-e Australia.

Yellow-striped Hunter (Garfield)

Yellow-striped Hunters are small to medium-sized Dragonflies. Their eyes are on the top of their heads and separated like Damselflies. They tend to inhabit streams and rivers mostly.